


"Otabek Says" OR Five Times Yuri Plisetsky Quotes Otabek Altin +1 Time Someone Else Does (and Also a Bonus)

by MaryFlanner



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 5+1 (+another is that a thing?), Gen, Victuuri but just background, he just really cares about his bff okay?, no actual romance but crushes abound, yuri is very 16
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 18:19:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11811615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryFlanner/pseuds/MaryFlanner
Summary: “Otabek says I have the eyes of a soldier.”  Yuri flings his hair back and catches it in one hand, hair tie at the ready. He snaps it on in one move and glides to center ice with only the slightest arc of one foot.  Goddamn, he’s cool.





	"Otabek Says" OR Five Times Yuri Plisetsky Quotes Otabek Altin +1 Time Someone Else Does (and Also a Bonus)

1.

“Otabek says I have the eyes of a soldier.” Yuri flings his hair back and catches it in one hand, hair tie at the ready. He snaps it on in one move and glides to center ice with only the slightest arc of one foot. Goddamn, he’s cool.

“A steadfast tin one?” Mila smirks, tugging his pony tail. “But that still doesn’t explain the eyeliner.” She took a lazy circle around him and swiped a thumb under his eye, ignoring the slap to her wrist it earns her.

“I’m highlighting my assets,” he sneers, doing a string of half-hearted crossovers. “Otabek says I reject society’s expectations by making feminine things masculine. I’m not the fucking Russian Fairy, so I’m wearing eyeliner.”

“I think you’re beautiful, Yura,” Georgi says from the boards. 

Mila opened her mouth, but closed it again, changed her mind, re-opened it, then, with finality, closed it and silently picks up speed for a double axel.

“I think your self-expression through make-up is admirable,” Georgi continues. “As you know, I--”

“Otabek also says you’re an embarrassment to subverted masculinity,” Yuri says. “So don’t compare. Chulanont, though. He knows what he’s doing with a kohl pencil.” Yuri skates away and loses himself in perfecting a tricky step sequence.

“Chulanont, hm?” Georgi says to himself. “I should call him.”

2\. 

“Otabek says that flexibility is a good tool but it’s not the most important skill in skating. Strength is.” 

Since winter, Yuri has grown two centimetres and lost a half degree from his oversplit. The constant bitching, she's used to. But this?

In three decades of beating some grace into Yakov’s brats, Lilia Baranovskaya had been on the receiving end of some smart mouths. She’d pinched ears, slapped rulers to thighs, and stared with the all the splintering ice of her many Russian winters. Never before, though, had she been so consistently sassed by someone she’d never even spoken to. If she ever meets this Altin boy, he owes her a few hours of bad-leg splits. 

“Up,” she barks. “Inverted push-ups. Thirty.”

Yuri gawps. “I can’t do thirty! I can barely do ten!”

She blinks, impassive. “But Yurotchka. Strength is the most important skill in skating. Whatever would your precious Otabek say about those noodle arms of yours? Now UP!”

Yuri grumbles and starts fiddling with a hair tie, starting a braid.

“Now,” she barks. Yuri climbs his feet up the wall and steadies himself on already shaky arms with a small yelp, then sputters as he inhales his hair that hangs in a partition around his head like a golden mop.

“ONE!”

Lilia smiles gently as his lowers and raises himself swearing in at least three languages. How something that looks so much like an angel can have such a filthy mouth she’ll never know.

3\. 

“Otabek says marriage is oppressive and manipulative and that it forces people to stay in relationships that aren’t happy anymore out of fear of failure.”

Victor lowers his bite of broccoli slowly, slowly back to his plate and smiles. Victor knows he’s beautiful. It’s nothing he puts much stock in, just something that’s a fact, repeated and verified like it’s been run through the scientific method. He’s been called a prince, a fairy, an elf. It’s all true. The thing is, though, he’s Eastern European and in Mother Russia, all three of those things are terrifying. So Victor puts on his best Vasilyevich grin, flicks his ethereal hair out of his face and says, simply, “Oh?”

Yuri shoves another bite of bento (that Yuuri made) into his mouth (that Victor is going to slap) and says, “So you’re pretty much guaranteeing you and the Katsudon are going to be miserable.” He swallows, smirks, and picks up his phone.

Victor takes a moment and a breath. He pulls his punches, really, as much as possible. But when you’re clever and ruthless about one thing--in Victor’s case, skating--it tends to bleed over. 

“I’m sorry to hear you say that.”

Yuri looks up at him skeptically. He was looking for an argument or a dramatic whine. The agreement must be a trap. It is.

“Because if Otabek thinks marriage is so terrible, I guess that means he’ll never want to marry you.”

Yuri’s eyes go wide and Victor thinks he’s going to choke. There’s a quick, almost imperceptible flash of horror before it morphs into a sneer. “So? I don’t care. You don’t marry people you’re just friends with.”

Victor reaches across the table and lays a gentle hand on Yuri’s wrist. “I know, kitten. And I do feel so bad for you. First you lose Yuuri to me, then Otabek doesn’t like you back...being 16 is so hard.”

Yuri’s face is white and Victor is afraid he’s going to chip a molar. He yanks his hand away and stands hard enough to spill his rice. “You don’t know anything, old man! I don’t want your pig and I don’t want Beka!” If Yuri’s bag hits Victor as he storms away, Victor supposes he deserves it. He’ll feel guilty about this. Later. But for now, he’s got a double portion of rice.

4\. 

“Otabek says Asians have an advantage in figure skating because of their slighter build.”

Yuuri looks up from where he’s just landed on his ass.

“Is that so?”

“Yup. So when you fall, it’s twice as bad as when a Russian or an American falls. Because you have a biological advantage,” Yuri says with an entirely too enthusiastic nod.

Yuuri sighs. This again. “Yurio, my inability to land a quad loop this morning is not a personal insult. It’s my hip. I banged it up last night and now I’m stiff. I’m pretty sure Asians bruise at the same rate as Russians.”

Yuri snorts. “If you’re going to make up excuses, pig, at least make them believable. I was with you yesterday and you were in ballet and strength training. You weren’t even on the ice.”

Silence, and Yuri’s smug face growing expectant.

“I didn’t do it at practice, Yurio. I did it at home.”

The triumphant derision in Yuri’s bark-laugh would be scathing if Yuuri didn’t know how short lived it would be. “Oh my god. You’re so clumsy! No wonder you can’t stay up on the ice, you can’t even stay off your--”

Yuuri can see the exact moment Yuri’s brain puts together the implications of Yuuri having hurt his hip “at home” plus Yuuri’s ferocious blush and averted eyes.His scream can be heard from the farthest reaches of the rink, drawing the attention of not only the other skaters, but also the early rising hockey players.  
“What’s wrong with you? Why would you--ugh!” Yuri is known for his speed, but his retreat from the ice is legendary, even for him.

“Give my best to Otabek!” Yuuri shouts to the slamming locker room door. “Tell him to enjoy being Asian!”

There’s a dry heave from the locker room and the distinct splatter of Mila falling to the ice and she shrieks with laughter.

5.

“Otabek says--”

“I don’t care what that boys says!” Yakov roars. “Do you want to quote him or beat him? I doubt he’s driving his coach insane with his constant ‘Yura says!’ Now shut up until your Bielman doesn’t look like a soft boiled egg!”

If there’s a quiver in Yuri’s lip, it’s because he’s holding in his rage. It has nothing to do with thinking about Otabek never talking about him. Nothing.

+1.

“Otabek says he’ll be here first thing in the morning.”

Victor’s hand is gentle on his back, rubbing softly. The Katsudon is on his other side, not touching, but still and calm and bleeding some of it into him. Yuri pushes a tear off his cheek like a mosquito.

“He’s coming to Moscow?”

“Da, kitten. I told him you said not to, but I think he was already booking tickets before I got off the phone.”

Yuri grumbles the best he can through his wavery voice. “I feel so stupid. He shouldn’t come. It’s no big deal, Grandpa is going to be fine.”

“It’s the off season,” Yuuri says softly. “He was going to come see you anyway, wasn’t he? Now he’s just coming a little early.”

Yuri nods, eyes on his shoes, chin on his knees.

“Besides,” Yuuri continues. “Even if Grandpa is going to be okay, you still had a big scare. I’m sure he just wants to see that you’re okay. There’s nothing wrong with that.”  
“He’s my best friend,” Yuri says into his jeans. 

Victor pulls him in by the shoulders. “You’re very lucky to have each other. It’s good to have someone who cares about you first.” Yuri knows he’s locking eyes with Katsudon over his head, but just this once, he doesn’t care. They’re okay. They flew back from Japan a week early as soon as Yakov told them that Yuri had found his grandfather grunting in pain from a slip on the ice. His hip is broken and there will be surgery and rehab, but he’s going to be fine. Yuri though? He might need a little bit before he is.

Otabek arrives while Grandpa is in surgery and shocks Yuri by clenching him tight in his arms, breathing shakily. They aren’t exactly the hugging type, but… well, maybe they could be. This feels good. Really good.

“Yura,” he says into his hair. He says nothing else, but it’s the first time he’s ever called Yuri by his diminutive and that is more than enough.

(...+ a bonus).

Yuri has never seen Otabek argue with his coach. Never. He gives his coach stoic nods and easy compliance--an utterly foreign concept to Yuri. That’s why, in warm-ups for Worlds, Yuri is more than a little curious about the heated discussion happening on the other side of the rink. Anybody who knew him less would think Otabek was just his normal, aloof self, but Yuri knows better. His eyebrows are drawn just a little further in and his fist is clenched at his side. If Yuri drifts a little closer in the course of running through his step sequence, so what?

“---told you that you’re not landing it enough for--”

“I know I can and I will! Yuri says--”

The coach’s fist comes down hard on the to of the boards and he growls through clenched teeth, “What did I tell you about that! I swear to god, Altin, if I hear ‘Yuri says’ one more time, I’m going to leave you to him! Maybe you think he can coach you, yes? This Plisetsky? Now go! No more of this! Triples only in the second half!”

The time warning sounds, and Otabek’s face is completely blank as he pushes away and skates almost directly into Yuri. 

“Davai, Beka,” he says clasping his hand at the thumb. He tries to contort his face into steely resolve but suspects he’s still sort of grinning like a fool.

“Davai, Yura,” Otabek answers with a gleam in his eye.

An hour later, Otabek shatters his personal best score with a quad lutz in the last 58 seconds. Yuri feels it in his skin like it was his own.


End file.
